It's a little late in coming, but here are the highlights of 2018 - Part One!
Youth Week 2018
The annual YFC camp in Magaliesburg, South Africa takes place every January for about 55 years now! In 2018, the theme was "Shift" and each contingent was to choose a race car for their team name.
The other contingents chose Ferrari, Bugatti, Maserati, but we in Botswana decided to be a little different once we learned our team colour was yellow--we chose JCB, the construction vehicles! We also donned construction vests and helmets on the day of our war cry to complete the look :), as Gugu and I demonstrated below:
Kids Coming to Christ and Publicly Professing Their Faith
We took 185 people from Botswana to camp, including about 30 sponsored youth from underprivileged families. The sponsorships are for kids with no means to attend otherwise, and it’s great to see how it impacts their lives. It was beautiful to see a sponsored camper give her life to Christ at camp! She was one of 17 Botswana campers who gave or rededicated their lives to the Lord.
Baptisms at Youth Week
During the week, a camper expressed a desire to be baptized. YFC is not a church, but an interdenominational organization so we don't normally conduct baptisms, but we felt led to call that camper's parents and see if they gave their approval/blessing for their child's baptism. When those parents were very supportive and gave their full blessing, the main leaders opened it up to anyone else who might desire baptism. Six from Botswana expressed a desire, including the girl who had just given her life to Christ. I called the parents of all six, who were overwhelmingly supportive and gave their blessing. What a beautiful occasion to see 13 campers baptized at Youth Week after making a public declaration of faith! I am pictured with three of those from Botswana who had just gotten baptized:
A Touching Testimony of a Life Impacted by Truth
Another highlight from this year’s Youth Week happened in the lunch line, chatting with Kondwani from the Botswana contingent. He told me that he still remembers the lesson I taught the previous year. The theme in 2017 was Rebuilding, so I taught an elective called “Rebuilding After Trials.” As an object lesson, I used some gemstones that Davina, the camp director, provided. I made them dirty, but explained that even if a jewel/gemstone gets dirty, its inherent value hasn’t changed. Likewise, God sees us all as precious jewels, and no matter how dirty we feel (from our own sin or sin done against us), our value and worth has not changed. Jesus is able to wash us clean and polish us to shine again. Davina provided a clear vase of water, and one by one, the campers placed their dirty gemstones into it, watching them be washed clean. We allowed them to keep their gemstone as a remembrance.
So at Youth Week a full year later, Kondwani told me how he still remembered my teaching, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his gemstone from that elective! He said he carries it in his pocket daily to remind him of that message!
Kondwani wrote this to me later (and I have his permission to share):
“What I remember most about the gemstones is when you said that no matter how much a gemstone gets dirty, it never loses its value. That even when we make mistakes and sin that God never stops loving us. That message really helped me throughout the year. I also remember how you got into an accident just before you were about to leave for Botswana as a missionary and several accidents you had to endure after making your decision to be a missionary. That reminded me that sometimes when you’re doing what you feel God intended, you’ll face challenges trying to derail us from his will, and sometimes we just have to trust God even when it doesn’t make sense.”
That touched my heart. Sometimes you wonder if what you teach makes a difference. God encouraged me that it does!
Other pictures from Youth Week 2018:
Helping to Prevent a Potential Suicide Attempt
A local Youth Week camper became suicidal the night after we got back from camp, mainly due to her distress after her mother was upset with her because of her grades at school. The camper reached out to her cabin leader while suicidal (and having the means to carry it out), and her cabin leader immediately contacted me. Since I was in the counselling team at Youth Week (made up of professional counselors and YFC staff), I immediately consulted the other counsellors for assistance. Within minutes we had a plan guided by professional counsellors to help prevent the suicide attempt. The cabin leader was able to get the girl to promise to meet up with her and me the next morning. As guided by the professionals, we gained permission from the girl to talk with her mother. We met with the mother alone, and then together with her daughter, to help bring understanding, reconciliation, and hope. We are so thankful that the girl is doing much better!
Transitions in YFC Botswana Leadership
In January 2018, YFC Botswana had a transition in leadership. For a couple years, the outgoing National Director, Koekoes van As, trained up George Steinbach to become the next National Director. Koekoes had served as National Director for about 5 years after taking over the position from her husband E.J. after he became the Regional Director for southern Africa and later became the Training Director for Africa and deputy Africa Director. Koekoes and E.J. felt led to move back to their home country, South Africa, to continue serving in YFC there (and in their international YFC roles— Koekoes is on the YFCI board and is the Africa Prayer Coordinator and they are both on the Africa Leadership Team) after having served in Angola, Namibia, and Botswana for YFC. They really got the YFC going again in Botswana after their arrival in 2002. We thank God for their labour in this nation!
At the YFC board meeting in January 2018, we had the official transition in leadership. George, the incoming National Director, made E.J. and Koekoes a beautiful wooden map of Botswana as a parting gift of appreciation. George, a Namibian, met E.J. and Koekoes in the 90s when they all trained and served together in YFC Namibia.
We prayed over E.J. and Koekoes to send them off with our blessing, and prayed over George and his family. Pictured below praying for them in the red shirt is Bobo and in the grey shirt is Tumi, YFC Gaborone volunteers who had recently joined the YFC Botswana board. It's great to see them growing in leadership in YFC. They both have been YFC volunteers since 2011-2012 in various ministries, including school ministry, cattle post outreach, prayer camp, ROAR Camp, and Youth Week. Tumi has been helping lead the Youth Week camp in Magaliesburg since 2012 because that was where she gave her life to Christ, so she is extra passionate about youth getting the chance to go! In the blue shirt next to Bobo is Nyerere, who became the new YFC Botswana Board Chairman. He has been involved with YFC Botswana for many years, longer than EJ and Koekoes I believe!
George’s wife Zil-lee has served in YFC Botswana for many years as staff and a board member. At this transition time, she also became the co-Prayer Coordinator, handling the gathering of prayer requests to make a monthly prayer letter that is sent out. If you’d like to receive this, please email me at ember.liddiard@yfci.org to request it. Pictured below is the YFC Botswana board (with a few missing, including Bobo, Nyerere, and Maruping). Zil-lee is the third from the right.
In addition to my continued role as the Gaborone Centre Director and YFC board member, I was appointed the other co-Prayer Coordinator for Youth for Christ Botswana, handling more of the actual prayer meetings and prayer events throughout the year, mobilising prayer of both YFC staff/volunteers and the youth in Botswana.
Speaking of prayer, I’m also part of the YFCI Global Prayer Team that serves as the prayer team at our General Assemblies (I’ve served at the General Assemblies in Thailand and Miami) and “meets” for a monthly Skype call to pray together. We also had a Global Prayer Leaders retreat in September 2018, but I'll share more about that in a future post.
"At the Cross" Hike and Prayer Event on Kgale Hill
One YFC prayer event that I helped organize and lead was in late January 2018, when we gathered youth to hike to the cross on Kgale Hill that we had erected in late 2017 to pray over the city and nation. I already shared about that in another blog post from June 2018 that you can see here: https://hope4botswana.blogspot.com/2018/06/
Hosting another World Race Team from the USA
In February 2018, we hosted a five-member World Race missionary team from the U.S. They joined in our regular ministry at schools and the hospital. A highlight was when they teamed up with us to give out teddy bears to every child in the hospital wards. The bears were donated by a mission team from South Africa, and each had a little tag on it that read: “God loves you.” It was great to bless the kids and their mothers and pray with them. We also hiked up to the cross on Kgale Hill with them and some other YFC staff/volunteers to drill a plaque onto the cross and hold another prayer meeting there.
Teaching Music to Orphans -- A Dream Becoming Reality
In February 2018, I began teaching music to the 25 orphans and vulnerable teens who are part of the African Havens tutoring program started by my church. I found out that many students don’t have music class at their schools. I have a degree in vocal music education so I asked if they would like me to teach them music? They were excited, so in February, I began teaching them choir songs once a week. It reminded me of something I envisioned back in 2002—that one day I could lead a choir of orphans in Botswana! So it is pretty awesome to see it starting to become a reality! At the end of their camp in April, I led them in performing a song at church. They did really well and received great applause!
Month of Youth Against AIDS rally at Tlokweng Junior Secondary
YFC was also invited to take part in a Month of Youth Against AIDS rally at Tlokweng Community Junior Secondary School in March 2018. I hadn’t planned on it, but ended up rapping to give them a little excitement after many different talks, haha.
Month of Youth Against AIDS Radio Program
For the 8th year, we organized a weekly radio program on Yarona FM national radio during the Month of Youth Against AIDS (March) to encourage youth to abstain as the best way to fight against HIV/AIDS. We also spoke out against gender-based violence and rape, and against the trend of older people sleeping with younger in exchange for money, gifts, etc (known as sugar-daddies, sugar-mommies, or “Blessers”).
I was joined in studio by Neo, Patrick (aka Genirol) (pictured above), James and Kez, Martin (aka Fairhope) and Godchaser (pictured below) to hear their perspectives.
Please pray with us as we prepare for the Month of Youth Against AIDS radio program for this March.
Alright, well that's all for Part One of the 2018 Highlights. Stay tuned for Part Two :)
No comments:
Post a Comment